Living dangerously
Yankees have been at their best during postseason with backs against the wall
The Yankees have thrived all season with their backs against the wall, and they will need to do so again Saturday night with a deciding Game 7 in Houston.
HOUSTON — The Yankees are back to their comfort zone, which is to say they are in the most uncomfortable of places.
Four times already this October, they have played elimination games — twice when it was sudden death for both teams — and four times they played on. They have so far excelled at this version of “Survivor.”
Now they get it once more. Against the Astros. Game 7. Saturday Night Survive. Win and go to Los Angeles for the World Series. Lose and go home to New York for winter. Talk about the difference between West Coast and East Coast. For the 2017 Yankees, it will be the difference between exhilaration and extinction.
The Yankees will start CC Sabathia, who has pitched exceptionally this postseason, but just as vitally for them, the Astros will not start Justin Verlander. The righty has had the kind of ALCS that takes an already good Hall of Fame candidacy to a higher level.
In an elimination game for Houston, Verlander delivered seven shutout innings Friday night to help the Astros force a decisive contest with a 7-1 triumph.
Verlander was an invaluable tonic for the Astros, who left The Bronx in a daze, their 101win season slipping away after three straight loses in which the team seemed intimated by Yankee Stadium. Verlander, though, provided cover until Houston’s deep lineup — which had managed just nine runs in the first five games — finally performed to its pedigree.
“Our offense is a sleeping giant,” Verlander said.
The Yanks had hoped to keep it in a slumber for the rest of 2017. Instead, to get to win their 41st pennant — to get to L.A. — they are going to have to deal with that offense, cope with a Minute Maid Park crowd that Greg Bird described as “rocking” in Game 6 and win on the road, which they have done just once in six tries so far this postseason. Of course, that one was the decisive Division Series Game 5 in Cleveland — won by Sabathia. However, Houston is 5-0 at home in these playoffs.
Todd Frazier conceded “mo-
mentum might have shifted a little bit” again in this best-ofseven, but he added, “No one is going to come in [Saturday] with a pouty face.”
Instead, they will try their game face, their poker face, but mainly their ability so far to face the edge of the cliff this October and endure. They won a wild-card sudden death against the Twins after being down 3-0 in the first inning. They won three straight elimination games against the Indians after going down 0-2.
They also trailed 0-2 in this ALCS, won three straight, and maybe this is the way it has to be for the Yankees in their postseason of living dangerously. So there is a Game 7 in which the home team has won each of the first six, and as Astros manager A.J. Hinch said, “We get to Game 7 and, by the way, it’s in Houston.”
Neither Hinch nor Verlander would dismiss the possibility of Verlander winning Game 6 then relieving in Game 7 — which Randy Johnson did when the Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series over the Yankees. By the way, in that World Series, the Yanks lost two on the road, won three at home, then lost two in Arizona — does that pattern sound familiar?
Still, as long as Verlander is not starting, the Yanks should be in a better place after his complete-game victory in Game 2 and his effort Friday night. For the Astros, the righty has provided a sweet 16 innings of dominance.
The Yankees had opportunities against Verlander. With Houston leading 3-0 in the sixth, with two on and two out, Gary Sanchez got to a 3-0 count as the tying run. He said he was not trying to hit a homer, but sitting on a fastball, he committed a baseball faux pas, not taking his “A” swing in that situation, instead, check-swinging an inning-ending grounder to short.
In the seventh, Frazier believed he had a game-tying three-run shot, but it died in center into the glove of the leaping George Springer.
Aaron Judge homered in the eighth with Verlander out of the game, but Houston tacked on four runs against David Robertson in the bottom of the inning, meaning for the first time in six elimination games at home in their history the Astros finally won. Houston gets a chance to do so again in ALCS Game 7.
The Yankees get another elimination game. They get Saturday Night Survive. Go to L.A. or go home. Rapture or it’s a wrap.